


genesis 23:4

by dietcokes



Series: a read into spencer reid [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s02e15 Revelations, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:40:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25286962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dietcokes/pseuds/dietcokes
Summary: "The barrel of the gun finds itself inches away from Reid’s forehead. He can already smell the gunpowder and rust."
Series: a read into spencer reid [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1831936
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	genesis 23:4

Death is exceedingly simple. Its entire being was designed to wither and decay unsuspecting citizens, proving time and time again that there will always be an end to a story. It takes away people’s breaths with a wicked smile, feeling the soul of its newest victim fade away from the sickenly limp body. Death was nothing more than an unstoppable Unsub that managed to take and take without a cooling off period. 

Death is simple, yes, but what happens  _ after _ \- that’s the mystery. To some, Death responds to the name Jesus and welcomes its victims into a palace filled with innocence, in which they all stand together in harmony while praising one person; God. If Reid didn’t know better (and part of him still didn’t - the part that knew praying for forgiveness and normalcy only worsened the brutality), he’d compare the prospect of afterlife to a cult filled with victims that suffer from an extreme version of Stockholm Syndrome.

To others, like him, the aftermath of dying is blank. An abyss with no logical way to be aware. It’s just numbing darkness. Facts don’t play into the fear of the unknown, Reid reminds himself. To try and shift everything that he’s ever believed in after some drug induced hallucination told him that  _ yes, there is in fact an afterlife _ was possibly the dumbest thing ever.

And yet -  _ shit.  _ The memory of a spring breeze drifting through his translucent body as he embraced the white mist around him wouldn't go away. It was a safe haven he easily dissociated back into as soon as he forced his gaze away from the taunting gravestone and to Tobias’ -  _ was it still Tobias? _ \- stiff body. 

The clouds still leave his vision in a stuffy haze, even as whoever is currently possessing the older man seats him back up. Reid can see the slight blinking of the camera in the corner and winces. Garcia is probably being forced to watch all of this live and God  _ knows _ who else. The rest of the team, maybe, if they aren’t out searching for clues. Maybe to other freaks who like to get their rocks off on pain and torture, who don’t (or do, Reid can’t tell which is worse) know that every second of this is real. 

He would probably get some last words out, tell everyone that this wasn’t their fault, tell them to let his mother down gently when she’s lucid enough to understand, if it weren’t for his mind fixating on the unmarked gravestone, imagining the phrase  _ HERE LIES SPENCER REID  _ chiseled onto it and wondering why the hell there was even a monument in this shed. 

He snaps out of his dissociative state the moment Tobias Hankel - Raphael - lifts the wooden chair back up and circles around his aching body with disinterest. “Tell me who you serve.” 

_ Play into his fantasy, build enough rapport with him that maybe, just maybe, getting out of this alive is possible,  _ the Gideon in his mind says, like he hasn’t been trying that since he found himself in this mess. “I serve you.” 

“Then choose one to die.” 

The red dot on the camera blinks in Reid’s peripheral. “What?” Everything feels fuzzy still, Raphael’s words barely making its way to his ears before fizzing off into a puff of air. 

“Your team members - choose which one to die.” 

He averts his gaze to the blood flicked across Raphael’s shirt, blood of the innocent people he saw twenty minutes ago. Blood he caused with his choices. “Kill me.” 

“You said you weren’t one of them.”

“I lied.”

“Your team has six other members.” He leans in, emotionless eyes peering into Reid’s tear filled ones before stepping back. “Tell me who dies.”

“No.” 

Hankel reaches into the pocket in his coat and pulls out a revolver, spinning the cylinder around so that the single bullet nestled inside lands randomly before smacking it closed with a bloody palm. The barrel of the gun finds itself inches away from Reid’s forehead. He can already smell the gunpowder and rust. “Choose, and prove you’ll do God’s will.”

He prepares for the worst. He knows that this could easily be it, that he spent his entire life building up to a dream of being a profiler that he could barely live in before dying. “No.” His life isn’t worth the death of another’s, someone who can truly make a name for themselves instead of cowering away into a safety net of facts the moment something bad arises, even as the trigger gets pulled and all Reid can think about is how young he is, how the gorey death of him will forever be ingrained into his teammate’s minds as a bullet shoves itself into his brain. 

Instead, the softening click of the chamber shifting is all he hears through the ringing of his ears, along with Raphael’s sharp words to choose splitting his mind. The shed they’re both in smells like blood and dirt and fish guts as he murmurs the command again, gripping Reid’s frail jaw with calloused fingers in order to keep him still. It feels like his bones will snap with any more pressure, even though facts prove otherwise. 

He knows that the odds are in his favor right now, that he most likely has two shots of rebelling before the statistics start to shift and the probability of a bullet being nestled in his brain becomes more possible, so he spits out an “I won’t do it.” with a false confidence that can easily be read into by people with a knack for spotting lies. The adrenaline runs through his veins along with whatever drug was forced into his elbow crease - the fact that his brain reels for an answer and finds nothing scares him more than any bullet. 

A part of Spencer wants to be wrong, to feel the force of a bullet jamming its way into his thick skull before basking in the warm light that he saw minutes ago, where his mother and father stood with joyous smiles as they called to him - innocent him, the him where fear of returning home to a mother who believed he was there to kill her didn’t exist. He was blissful, calm. Happier than he’s been in a long time. Then he woke up to a living nightmare where he’s playing Russian Roulette and  _ winning _ .

“Life is a choice."

“No.”

Another clink. Now the odds of him dying at the hands of a sadist amidst a psychotic break are significantly higher, and he inhales a final breath, only to stop when his body creaks at the pressure.

His chest burns at the hazy memory of being resuscitated by Tobias, the feeling of persistent hands pushing down onto his ribs with enough force to bend them while drool dried against his hollowed cheek and pureness embraced his - soul would be the easiest way to describe it, but it feels  _ wrong _ , like using the term rectangle to describe a square or calling a blood orange crayon red - whatever. 

Then he thinks of the people on the other side of the screen, probably still processing the situation in front of them while simultaneously trying to enhance images that might give them a clue or two as to where he's being held. He wonders if they understood his earlier hint, when his mind wasn't cracking like it was now and the idea of making it out of here alive still seemed plausible.

The only hope he has left is hope that they make it here in time before Tobias vanishes into thin air and kills another person in the name of God, which slowly diminishes more as he realizes there's nothing around him to indicate where he is other than some broken gravestone pieces and dusty boxes. 

Realization floods his body. It isn’t entirely certain that the team will understand his message, given the situation, but this is the best he can do and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try. “I choose Aaron Hotchner. He’s a classic narcissist.” He prays to whatever divine figure created this world that they can read through his facade before Hankel realizes that he's saying the wrong thing. “He thinks he’s better than everyone else on the team. Genesis 23:4 -  _ Let him not deceive himself and trust in emptiness, vanity, falseness, and futility, for these shall be his recompense. _ ”

Raphael raises the gun aboves his head and pulls the trigger. The bang makes him curl in on himself as much as possible.

-

The team finds him kneeling over Tobias Hankel’s dying body after rushing towards the sound of a gunshot, the blood from his wound staining the dried up grass around the two pale men. Reid feels it soaking into his pants, sticking to the skin underneath as the boy underneath him smiles. “You killed him.” He spits out red while Spencer’s head spins with the realization that  _ Tobias _ is going to be the one to feel the pain, not the two mentalities lying within him that caused nothing but chaos since their birth. 

Spencer wants to cry. He  _ should  _ cry. He's been through emotional hell over the last couple of days to the point where death became a matter of  _ when _ instead of  _ if _ , and he was wondering how they'd tell his mother that her son wouldn't be writing to her anymore and if his father would show up to a funeral if the team hosted one. Crying should be a natural response.

He catches himself staring off into the patch of recently dug dirt instead as the weight of reality begins to push his body into itself, nestling into every groove until they all lock up and start to vibrate against the soft breeze. His chest burns, not from the ache of broken ribs but from the overpowering feeling of  _ wrong _ , a wrong so deep that even as Hotch pulls him to his feet and words begin to spill out without a filter, the only true thing racing through in his mind is the presence of a deep, insatiable desire to escape from the black hole in his stomach. 

It's like he's on autopilot while simultaneously being in total control when he asks to be alone. He doesn't want and wants so fucking badly, wants to entertain the idea of leveling out into a blissful state in order to run from accepting reality while also avoiding the idea of facing the past he keeps running back to in the hazy state, that by the time he's decided the vials are already stored into the loose pockets of his pants.

He knows better than to think that he'll just throw them out when no ones looking, but his mind still supplies false hope. 


End file.
